Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1887-02-24
CHlLDREN'S CLOTHES.
Useful improvements in the Style of Under
Garments and Winter Dresses.

Useful improvements in the Style of Under
| Garments and Winter Dresses.
| ''They won't stay down! They hunch
up just as soon as I pull my stockings
on!' used to be the impatient COM
! plant every morning. when our boy
| first attempted dressing his feet alone,
| with long drawers reaching to the
ankle.
"Wrap the anklet of the drawers leg
snug round your ankle, so; now bring
| up the stocking, quick, so fashion," or,
Curl your heel and toes into the
drawers anklet; now up with stocking
before the drawers leg can slip, so fash
ion, don't you see?' Frankie's father
would say encouragingly, while watch
ing his boys struggles to keep his
drawers legs down while his stock
ings went up. But frankie didn't
see, and 80 fashion, wasn't the
fashion at all that those refrac-
tory anklets persisted in following, so,
after being called again and again from
my breakfast getting, to help the little
fellow dress, became so interested in
the matter that I invented this way of
keeping drawers from hitching above the
ankle, though since have found other
mothers who, long before my day,
adopted the same method.
At opposite edges of each anklet I
sewed a six-inch strip of white web
elastic, making a loop which slips I'M
der the sole of the foot and holds the
garment in place.
I used tape for loops at first, but
frankie complained they would not
give, and bound his feet, so resorted
to elastic straps, and, though they are
washed as often as the drawers, they
have not yet so lost elasticity that there
is any complaint.
The mornings are so fully occupied
it is great help if the little people
will dress themselves, and they can do
it if their under garments are so fitted
as to button in front.
Last winter I turned new leaf in
this matter. I cut and remodeled all
their shirts, "nighties'' and underwaists
so that they have front closings, and
even the little four-year-old. under this
new arrangement, could nearly dress
and undress herself, requiring help
only about the buttons of her dress and
tire. This winter she is ambitious to
close even those, and often comes run
ming out into the kitchen when l am
getting breakfast, to twirl herself be-
fore me, radiant and fresh as dewy,
newly blossomed sweet pea, in her pink
and white apron, proudly saying: ''See,
mamma, did dress myself all alone -
AS soon as our little folks are up on
singing winter mornings, they flock
on to the warm hearth rug before the
sitting-room' open fire, and it occupies
since they found can dress themselves
from stockings to collar, with a little
help now and then from each other.
The childrens arms need looking
over several times day to make sure
that little sleeves and wristlets of under
garments are smoothly down in place,
for often, in dressing or in their evolu-
tons and additions through the day,
wristlets and sleeves are pused up,
making an uncomfortable, binding
wad about the elbow, sometimes
cruelty chatting and choking the little
arm, which causes the child to be irri-
table and troublesome.
The children's everyday winter
dresses break and fray with wear so
quickly about the lower front of the
skirt, we have trimmed all such skirts
with plated or ruff1ed fiounce, which
has needed replacing across front
cores onces, sometimes twice, before
the dress was outworn.
Instead of single ruff1e with hem
med edges and of such depth that a
tape is necessary underneath to hold
the plaits in place, we like better to
trim such everyday flannel little dresses
with two plated, narrow frills of stout
flannel like dress; so narrow no tapes
are required, and with pinked or
notched edges. Such ruff1es do not
break in the plaits so quickly as those
of greater depth, and when the pinked
edges are worn ragged, pare ruffie
even and again pink.-Clarissa Potter,
IN Good Housekeeping.